The Open House (12 page)

‘Arsking for trouble, I call it. Particularly now, with that Leonidas about the place.’

‘Mr Leonidas hasn’t been at Ledward long?’

‘Eighteen months, it might be – but with a lot of come and go as you please. And do I trust him? Like Hitler, I do. Mark you, every butler is entitled to his occasional brandy and cigar. But not to being that idle you’d suppose he was a gentleman. And wenches, too. They’ll be ’is Antilles Heel one day is what I say.’

‘Ah, Mrs Gathercoal, women are a terrible risk. I suppose you have been with Professor Snodgrass for some time?’

‘Twenty years, I have. And in better ’ouses before that. Seats and residences, I’ve seen – although I admit its ’aving been in inferior capabilities. Kitchenmaid twice in establishments bigger than Ledward itself. Not that I ’ave anything against the Professor and ’is station in life, I haven’t. The old gentry written all over ’im, the Professor has – even although e’s ’ad to make a living in a University.’

‘I’m delighted that you are so well affected towards your employer, Mrs Gathercoal. I don’t suppose you ever knew Mr Adrian?’

‘Of course I knew ’im!’ Mrs Gathercoal was indignant. ‘Lived for the outside of a year in this very ’ouse, ’e did, shortly after I came to the Professor. Not that ’e owned it then, not as far as I know. ’Is brother’s it was – ’im that lived abroad and died afterwards. That as ’ow I know what nonsensicalness all this is’ – Mrs Gathercoal made a gesture comprehending the whole bedroom – ‘this and all that in the dining-room too. ’Ot plates and champagne, I arsk you! What a gentleman wants – coming ’ome like that if ’e does come ’ome – is a sandwich and a couple of large whisky-and-sodas.’

‘Perfectly true, Mrs Gathercoal.’ Appleby was regarding the woman in black with genuine respect. ‘But perhaps it was different when the Professor was young.’

‘This ’ere bedroom, too. A regular museum piece, it is, and Mr Adrian never slep’ in it in ’is life. I could take you to ’is proper room, I could, one up from this, which is the one as ought to ’ave been got ready for ’im.’

‘Could you, indeed? Do you know, Mrs Gathercoal, I’d be most grateful if you’d do precisely that now. I’d be most interested. Let us go there at once.’

‘And just who are you, anyway?’ It was with distinguishably diminished challenge that Mrs Gathercoal reiterated this question. Conceivably she had formed the erroneous impression that Appleby, like the Professor, belonged to the old gentry.

‘As a matter of fact, Mrs Gathercoal, I am a policeman. In case that puzzles you, perhaps I ought to say rather an upper policeman.’

‘Officer class,
I
can see.’

‘Well, staff-officer, as a matter of fact. And I’m here – at least I’m remaining here – because a very shocking thing has happened. I must tell you about it, I’m afraid. Mr Adrian Snodgrass
did
come home tonight. But now he’s dead. His body’s in the drawing-room. Somebody has murdered him.’

‘That
doesn’t surprise me, it doesn’t!’ It was demonstrably without the least striving for effect that the amazing Mrs Gathercoal took this shattering information in her stride. ‘A bad ’at, if ever there was one, that young man was. Not that ’e’s young now no longer, not if what you say is true. There being neither youth or age, sir, in the ’eavenly mansions – no, nor in the other place either.’

‘I imagine your theology to be impeccable. And I must acknowledge that I have myself not formed a favourable impression of Adrian Snodgrass’ character. Still, it seems rather hard that he should be done to death hard upon stepping over his ancestral threshold. The matter deserves looking into – wouldn’t you agree?’

‘That there Leonidas deserves looking into, ’e does. And poking about in too, if you asks me. You’d find evil in that man’s guts. Begging your pardon.’

‘I intend looking into pretty well everybody, as a matter of fact. And every
where
and every
thing
, while I’m about it.’ And Appleby pointed suddenly at the displaced portrait of the Victorian lady. ‘Would you, now, know anything about that painting?’

For the first time, Mrs Gathercoal appeared surprised. She walked over to the canvas and stared at it.

‘Come off its ’ook, it seems to ’ave done. Mind you, family portraits are said to fall with a crash sometimes when there’s ill luck coming to a ’ouse. I’ve ’eard of that in some very ’igh-class establishments. Would it be that, do you think, sir?’

‘I’ve certainly heard of such phenomena.’ Appleby marked with satisfaction that he was now coming in for a properly respectful form of address. ‘Although I must admit I hadn’t thought of it in this instance. You are not aware of anything special about this picture?’

‘Dusted it, from time to time, I ’ave. Not my proper work, not by a long way. But we all give a hand at keeping this place up – being willing to oblige the poor Professor, bless ’im. But it’s a poor class of thing, to my eye – me ’aving been in places with Joshuas and the like on the walls.’

‘There are some very fine and valuable pictures here at Ledward, Mrs Gathercoal. But your taste is absolutely correct. This isn’t one of them. Shall we go up to that bedroom now?’

‘Come this way,’ Mrs Gathercoal said.

Ledward – Appleby was presently discovering – had what could best be described as a dilatible character. He had earlier concluded (on the basis of some interest in such things) that here was a kind of Kedleston Hall miniaturized. But now the place was taking on the dimensions, if not of a Versailles, at least of a Knole or a Hampton Court. Mrs Gathercoal, having undertaken to conduct him to an apartment modestly described as ‘one up from this’, had first led him up a service staircase roughly in parallel with the main staircase of the house, and then through a maze of corridors, each sufficiently stately in itself, the rooms opening upon which would have served very adequately to accommodate the general staff of an invading army. Perhaps there
was
an invading army. Almost any number of people, it occurred to Appleby, could have walked into this open house round about midnight, and be still lurking around the place in the interest of no end of nefarious purposes. His progress could not actually have occupied more than two or three minutes. But his sense of disorientation was complete. Were Mrs Gathercoal suddenly to vanish (as so dream-like a character might well do) his hope of returning to the known terrain of that pillared hall before dawn would be slender indeed. But in fact Mrs Gathercoal had now halted before a closed door.

‘It’s ’ere,’ Mrs Gathercoal said.

The oddity of all this was, if anything, enhanced by the blaze of light in which every corner of the house was still bathed. It had occurred to nobody to moderate or mitigate the pervasive illumination which Professor Snodgrass had deemed it proper to create for the reception of the wandering heir. Appleby glanced to right and left. This particular corridor had been judged suitable for the exhibition, or storage, of rather a large collection of mediaeval armour. It hung on the walls with the suggestion of a kitchen lavishly equipped with outlandish utensils in some sort of stainless steel; it perched on stands to the creating of a threatening appearance of ranked and patient flunkeys stricken into a robot-like cohort of metallic presences. The family of Snodgrass had not, it was to be presumed, flourished in great station when such accoutrements were of much practical utility. These vistas of junk witnessed only to the ineradicable acquisitiveness of the human species. Snodgrasses had been for quite some time, of course, followers of the profession of arms. Busbies, bearskins, and Balaclava helmets would have been entirely in order, and one might even have expected outlandish uniforms from the fringes of civilization such as the little Adrian was dressed up in for the purposes of the photograph now to be seen in the library downstairs. But there was something disturbing in this entirely bogus suggestion of ancestral activity on the fields of Poictiers and Agincourt.

Reflections of this sort (not at all relevant to the matter in hand) were cut abruptly short. Mrs Gathercoal had opened the door of Adrian Snodgrass’ authentic bedroom.

This was the moment – as it transpired – when the less boring part of Sir John Appleby’s night out began.

There were certainly two men – and Appleby wasn’t at all sure that he hadn’t glimpsed a third. They were patently not policemen – although it might certainly be termed investigation that they seemed to be about. There was a desk in a window embrasure with half its drawers pulled out – beginning (Appleby instantly recognized the professional touch) from the bottom and not from the top. On the farther wall, beyond a simple bed, hung what appeared to be a dim and darkened portrait of a Tudor lady. And one of the men was in the act of lifting it from its hook.

‘You can stop all that,’ Appleby said – and heard his own voice come to him with the calm authority of years at this sort of thing. ‘The police are here, and you’re through.’

This admirable speech certainly produced an instant effect – but not quite the effect that was to be desired. Instantly and entirely, darkness fell. The lights in this bedroom, it had to be supposed, could be controlled from a farther door, and one of the intruders had made a very successful dash to the switch. There was still, indeed, a beam of light from the corridor behind Appleby and Mrs Gathercoal. But it was a moment before this effectively assisted sight. And this moment was filled by the sound of flying feet – a sound, Appleby told himself, which was becoming something like the
leit
-
motif
of this perplexing nocturnal occasion. This time, they made it clear that the marauders were by no means trapped. In a house like this, rooms still communicated with rooms which communicated with yet farther rooms in quasi-regal fashion. And through this sort of vista the footsteps were fading fast.

‘Mrs Gathercoal, go downstairs to the drawing-room and send up the police.’ Appleby shouted this as he ran. A proper professional phlegm had suddenly deserted him. He’d had enough. He was very angry indeed. If he could come within reach of one of these rascals, he’d bring him down with a crash he wouldn’t quickly forget.

This resolution, perhaps injudicious in an elderly man whose occupation had been many years of a sedentary sort, was at least spirited and indeed inspiriting. Appleby made surprising speed. Even so, he saw that any success attending his pursuit must depend on two factors: the promptness with which he was backed up by Stride and his men, and the extent to which the lay-out of the house was as unfamiliar to his quarry as it was to himself. In this second regard he might, indeed, hold an advantage. The evidence, although painfully contradictory and obscure so far, did point to the possibility that these noisy and blundering people were not up to their job – whatever that job might prove to be. They knew how to rifle a desk. But, facing the problem of what looked like a rummage through Ledward, it seemed conceivable that they had failed to do adequate homework in the way of casing the joint first. Very full ground-plans and elevations of a notable house like this could certainly be turned up with only a little informed research among books on English architecture. If they hadn’t thought of this then Appleby, knowing about such places in a general way, might have the edge on them. Knowing, for example, that he was now on the first floor of the main building, and that the outer wall was on his right, he knew that eventually there must be a left turn which would prove to be a cul-de-sac. Stateliness has to be paid for by inconvenience: the hall and saloon between them, thrusting up the full height of the building from façade to façade, must cut the entire formidable structure into two symmetrical and self-contained halves, between which the only communication would be at basement level or through the hall or saloon themselves. It might be possible to corner a fellow who didn’t realize that.

Appleby’s feet rang on marble. He was in a bathroom which had been shoved in between two bedrooms and was shared by each. You had to reckon, of course, with all sorts of odd structural alterations and adaptations in a place of this sort. He could still hear footsteps – and now suddenly there was the sound of a door thrown violently open and then slammed shut. It was followed, more faintly, by the suggestion of a second door being treated in the same way. Some idea of thus impeding a pursuer’s progress must be behind this. Sure enough, before him in the second bedroom was a closed door. Flinging it open, he judged it odd that the fugitives, so far, hadn’t thought to flick at…

But, this time, they had. Once more, Appleby was staring into darkness.

Or rather, once more into
near
darkness. There was plenty of light behind him – and a pretty target he must be, silhouetted against it. He took a swift sideways step, feeling for a light-switch as he did so. He found it at once, and what he had already distinguished as a small boudoir-like apartment sprang into full visibility. The hold-up had hardly been worth contriving. But now he saw that the system of intercommunicating rooms had come to an end. The only other door was on the left, and must give on the corridor. He crossed to it, and threw it open. The corridor, of course, ran in both directions. At any point in this chase so far, one or more of the fugitives might have bolted into it and doubled back. Only his ear had assured him that there was at least one man ahead of him still. The whole corridor lay in a subdued but adequate light. The switches here must have eluded any hasty search for them. There was nobody to be seen. But there
were
faint sounds, and they still came from the direction in which he had been going. But what appeared to be the end of the corridor was now only a little way in front of him. He must be coming to one of the corners of the main building.

Only he wasn’t. The appearance before him was a consequence of some quirky piece of reconstruction. The breadth of the corridor had been taken into a room – which thus merely interrupted the run of it. Appleby swung into this room. It brought him into the presence of the enemy. And not of one enemy, or of two enemies or three. If he had earlier entertained the fancy that Ledward could absorb a whole army – well, here was precisely that.